Vol 3 Section 0143

November 1 Monday ca. – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Marshall White about an article that was “all ready for mail.” Sam detailed three items of changes [MTP]. Note: it’s not clear which article or piece is referred to here.

November 2 Tuesday –In Vienna Sam also wrote to Bettina Wirth.

Mrs. Clemens corrects me. She says “My Grandfather’s Old Ram” is in print. She says it is in a book of mine whose American title is “Roughing It”—but the English & Tauchnitz editions bear another name—a name which we are not acquainted with. She thinks that the “Negro Ghost Story” is also in one of my books, but she doesn’t know the name of that book, & neither do I. The truth is, I am not very well acquainted with my books.

The “Gold und Silberland” book which we gave to your little boy is made up of parts of “Roughing It,” but they left the Old Ram out.

Thank you in advance, & very much, for the Reichsrath ticket.

I am sorry, for your sake, that I know so little about my literature. / Sincerely … [MTP]. Note: IM Gold-Und Silberland was the translation of part of RI; see May 25, 1899 for an inscription of this work by Clemens. The strikeout phrase may be Sam remembering the gift was to another boy.

Joe Twichell wrote to Sam. Twichell had:

…been reading and re-reading, and again reading your ‘In Memoriam” for Susy, with the accompaniment of a gray autumn day and the falling leaves to blend with its unspeakable heart-breaking sadness; its aching, choking pathos….It renews the pain of the sense of Life’s inscrutable mystery, and of the mystery of human

experience. It renews also (may I say?) the deep and solemn gladness of the faith that God in whose awful hand we all are held, is, when you get to the end of things, Love.

Joe pasted a clipping in his letter, commenting “There are so many things about you in the papers now-a-days pleasant to red: some of them commercial, I suppose, but not all. I Think the book is going to have an immense success. Would it might bring you home!” The clipping:

Mr. Clemens will be a proud man when he learns that at the dinner to Mr. Anthony Hope at the Lotos Club, the other night, Dr. Chauncey Depew named Quo Vadis and Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc as the two great novels

of the year [MTP]. ,

November 3 Wednesday – Again Sam attended a session of the Austrian Reichsrath. During a break in the proceedings, Sam met Dr. Otto Lecher in the restaurant. Lecher had given the marathon speech on Oct. 28- 29, and it’s clear from Sam’s account of that night in “Stirring Times in Austria,” that he admired the man [Dolmetsch 74]. Note: Sam’s notebook for Nov. 3 has several pages of notes from 8:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. [NB 42 TS 44-47]

In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus. The canvassing copy of FE had arrived from Frank Bliss. Sam was “obliged to Mr. Ellis” (Alfred Ellis, photographer). He objected to the use of a photograph fronting Chapter 1 that included family members.

“Whenever you recognize my wife or daughter in any pictures, please squelch that picture. They don’t want to appear in the book, of course” [MTP]. Note: JoDee Benussi points out the offending photo is the same as on p. 77 of Overland With Mark Twain, Gribben & Karanovich, eds. Also, that one photograph of family members got past the publisher in FE, p. 66; compare this to an enlarged view of the photo in Overland, p. 73

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.